Speaking English: You NEED This Vocab!

This vocabulary lesson is all about my trip to Colombia. You’ll hear an amazing story, get tons of new vocabulary AND meet my sister-in-law! 🙂

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Video Transcript:

You’re a walking noodle.

What does it mean in English to be a walking noodle? Stay tuned and you’ll find out. Let’s learn useful American English vocabulary as I tell my sister-in-law about a recent trip to Colombia.

So, Rachel, I didn’t hear about your Colombia trip yet. Tell me everything.

It was so like adventurous. It was so unlike anything that I’ve done. You know, all of my travel lately has been with family or a lot of it or if I’ll go somewhere with some girlfriends, we’ll go to like one spot and just stay there forever and do nothing and just chat. Um, but I was traveling with my friend from the Netherlands and she has a much more adventurous style of travel than I do. So this is perfect, it got me right out of my comfort zone.

There are two terms from that segment I want to go over. First, I said it was so unlike anything that I’ve done. Why say unlike anything that I’ve done rather than different from anything I’ve done?

I’m Rachel. I have a background in opera singing and I’ve been teaching the American accent to non-native speakers for over 20 years. Scan this QR code or go to rachelenglish.com/free to get my free course, the Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent. It will blow your mind. It will give you totally new ideas on how to get the sound you’ve always wanted.

So this is perfect, It got me right out of my comfort zone.

There are two terms from that segment I want to go over. First, I said “It was so unlike anything that I’ve done.” Why say unlike anything that I’ve done rather than different from anything I’ve done? They’re both grammatically correct, but when we’re comparing something to all other prior examples, it works better to use unlike.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before.

She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before.

They’re both grammatically correct, but when we’re comparing something to all other prior examples, it works better to use unlike.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before.

She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before.

Like adventurous. It was so unlike anything that I’ve done.

What’s a comfort zone? It’s any circumstance in which I feel relaxed and confident in my abilities. For example, when I was younger, I was comfortable babysitting one or two kids at a time. Five, that was out of my comfort zone. Pook had me traveling to places and in environments that I’ve never experienced before. So, I wasn’t always totally relaxed. Some of it was definitely outside my comfort zone, which is important to keep growing as a person. This is perfect. It got me right out of my comfort zone. Not only was I traveling with my friend Pook from the Netherlands, um, but I was traveling with Sarah, who gave the toast at my wedding. So, yeah, obviously two people who I just love and it was so good to be with them. So, I spent a couple days in Cartagena and actually, did you know that I got to meet one of my students? Did I share that?

Oh, tell me about that, remind me of that. I remember hearing that. That’s so cool.

So, he says, you know, I would I’d love to have breakfast with you or coffee or just meet you for a few minutes. And I was like, okay. You know, he’s going to buy a plane ticket to come do this. But he totally did. He took two days off work.

Kudos to him. That’s so awesome.

He flew up and we met for breakfast. And, you know, it was just, it was so fun. I re-, I knew he had been a student in my academy for many years. I had, you know, been seeing his name pop up. Um, and yeah, so just to actually meet him and have a conversation with him in real life was so fun. So that was kind of the highlight of the Cartagena time.

Kudos to him. That’s so awesome!

What does kudos mean? Basically, it means accolades. I’m impressed. A good job was done.

Kudos to you for studying hard and acing the test.

Kudos to me for getting tickets months ago.

It’s been sold out now for weeks. It comes from a Greek noun meaning praise or renown.

Kudos to you for working on your English speaking skills and watching this video.

After Cartagena, what did we do?

We decided to go to a place that was very close. So, we went to an island off the coast of Cartagena.

Ooh.

And it’s sort of built on like coral and mangrove.

That’s crazy.

It was. So, there was there’s not like big sandy beaches. There was some sandy areas.

Sounds beautiful, though.

It was amazing. Mangrove is a tropical tree that grows in marshes or tidal shores. Noted for its interlacing above ground roots. When we left the island, we went to a town called Barú and reached its port by going through a mangrove forest, and it was so cool.

So, we stayed at this cute little hotel um, called Hotel Coralina Island. Shout out to them if you’re ever the vicinity, go stay.

A shout out is a message of appreciation or support that you give in a public setting.

I want to give a shout out to my husband David for being so supportive of everything I do.

Hotel Coralina Island. Shout out to them if you’re ever the vicinity go stay. Um, but we had this cute little three-person room and it had its own little private deck that was built right out on the coral. So, it was like the coral, the deck, and then just the water splashing.

Wow.

And it had a hammock.

Did you hear that when you were sleeping at night, the water?

Um, I mean, I couldn’t because I use earplugs.

Oh, right, right, right.

No matter where I am, I use noise-cancelling earplugs.

You’ve heard of noise-cancelling headphones, I would guess. They have tiny microphones that pick up the sounds around you and then create an opposite soundwave to cancel it out. That way you can hear your music, movie, podcast, or conversation better. But I used to be a very light sleeper, so I wanted something really small that would cancel noise and not bother me when I sleep. So I found these earplugs that have worked well for me.

But you maybe could have. I don’t know. Um, but it was just it was gorgeous. And one of the things I so appreciated about it is they did not have in their public spaces, they didn’t have music going. You know, a lot of places will have speakers and there’s always music and you can’t get away from it.

That drives me crazy.

It just really like, that is not serene to me.

No.

I need like silence and quiet. And this place, you know, we were traveling in the offseason so, we were not, there was not a lot of other tourists around so it was very quiet and peaceful.

If something drives you crazy, it makes you really annoyed or frustrated.

And you can’t get away from it.

That drives me crazy.

Having no quiet absolutely drives me crazy.

Serene is an adjective that means calm and peaceful. It’s the opposite of how you feel if something is driving you crazy.

So, Lisa comes to Mexico with me every spring break and knows how much I love to snorkel, right? Like every day there I’m going out.

Oh, that’s my girl. She goes out.

Yep. I’ll just be like, “Okay, I’m heading out. If I’m not back in two hours, come looking for me.” Um, so from the hotel, they have a snorkeling trip that you can take. And it was fantastic. I mean.

Do you think that was one of the best snorkeling places you’ve ever done?

I would say it’s tied with the spot in Mexico.

When comparing two things, if they are tied, that means they’re equal. The two spots are equally great for snorkeling.

In some ways it was more cool and in some ways it was less cool. So in Mexico where we go, I see a lot more variety of fish in a way that’s very interesting. And I’ve seen sea turtles and lots of rays and that kind of thing.

Variety of fish. This means lots of kinds of fish. It’s not really a comment on the number of fish overall, but the number of different kinds of fish.

Here, I saw less varieties of fish. Um, but the formations of what’s growing was kind of more interesting.

Okay, so I made a grammar mistake here. I said, “I saw less varieties of fish.” But I shouldn’t have said less. I should have said fewer. We need to use fewer if the noun is countable. Can you count the number of varieties? Yes. So then I should have used fewer. When you’re using a non-countable noun like time, it took less time than I thought, then you use less. I said, “I saw less varieties of fish.” But I should have said, “I saw fewer varieties of fish.”

Here, I saw less varieties of fish, and I just, I had the time of my life exploring it.

This phrase means you absolutely enjoyed yourself so much. Another similar expression is to say I had a ball.

I just got back from my niece’s wedding and we had the time of our lives. Or, and we had an absolute ball.

And it was just me, Sarah and Pook who did the trip. Um, and yeah, the boat just dropped us off and we just did our own thing and it was you know.

They just left you there?

Well, he was he then drove to a very nearby island. Like we could see him. But you know, where we go in Mexico, you know, I like to just swim out and do my own thing.

I like to do my own thing. This means I’m very independent. I don’t like making decisions as a group or being around a bunch of other people. When snorkeling, I prefer to be on my own and to do my own thing.

But if you want to go to like the real coral part, you have to go with a guide.

Yeah.

And then that person takes you around and you’re with a group of people and it’s generally somewhat crowded. There’s lots of other people doing tours doing tours and you don’t get to really choose what you look at when you just follow this person. So that’s what I really loved about this. I like to just be off on my own doing my own thing.

Yeah. You would like that. I would like the safety of being with someone.

Yeah.

Like don’t let me drown.

Yeah. No, I had a blast. I loved it.

Had a blast is another way to say had an amazing time. It’s just like I had the time of my life or I had a ball.

Yeah. No, I had a blast. I loved it. There’s a little restaurant there. You know, it’s a small island, so you basically take all your meals there. And it was on this sandy area under mangroves. It was amazing. And right up by the water.

What?

Yeah. I guess I got to show you pictures like we would the places where we would eat our breakfast. I mean, it was just so good.

I am so jelly.

Yeah.

Um, I’ll take you there someday.

Okay.

What the heck does I’m so jelly mean?

You probably know what jelly is, but did you know that it can also be short for jealous? Lisa wanted to eat at the restaurant at the hotel Coralina Island.

But also, there was this huge Iguana like six feet long, at one point that was just chilling in the dining area. It was just, Yeah. And the mangroves and just, it was, I loved it. It was, also we did nothing there. I mean, we just aside from the snorkeling, we just ate and relaxed. I read a whole novel. Like I never do that.

Oh, that’s so great.

Yeah. It was so good. So then after the two days, um, Sarah had to go back. So, we all came back to Cartagena. She went to the airport. Oh, another thing I forgot to tell you is when we were in Cartagena, we were walking back from dinner at like 10 at night one night and this guy saw me on the street and stopped me and said, “Are you a professor on YouTube?” And he was someone who’d been following me.

Oh, that’s cool.

And we found out.

He was surprised.

He was surprised.

Walked down the street.

Yes. And we started chatting with him. He works at the airport. And then when Sarah flew out two days later, he was working and they saw each other and they chatted. So yeah. So then Pook and I decided, all right, we saw Cartagena, we saw, you know, this beautiful island. Let’s do something totally different. Now Pook loves Colombia and she this was her fourth time there.

So she decided, yeah, go with her. Because she knows what she likes to do, you know. She, we stayed in this um hostel that she had stayed at before.

Okay.

And it was sort of it wasn’t easy to get to, you know, but then what you get for that is you get again a lot of serenity. And there, one of the nights we were the only people there. Serenity is the noun form of the word we already learned, serene. Serene is an adjective meaning calm and peaceful. Serenity is the state or quality of being calm.

When you travel to an isolated place, you get serenity.

The setting of the hostel was very serene. I felt a lot of serenity in the mornings there.

You know, but then what you get for that is you get again a lot of serenity and there one of the nights we were the only people there.

Wow.

Yeah. Because of it being low season. Anyway, I highly recommend this place as well. It was called Minca Mano Verde. Um, so we get there, it takes like five hours in the car and then we have to hire a 4×4 because there’s like kind of no road.

Wow.

To get up there and it’s so bumpy. I mean, it like it did not look at all like a road. Like it’s part of it is, but then you go basically off road for the last maybe half hour to get to the hostel. And a lot of the places where you’re turning, there’ll be these hairpin turns.

Oh yeah.

And the um, the Jeep or the 4×4 couldn’t make it. So, it would have to go and then do some reverse stuff like that and then go. And every time it reverses, you know, you’re reversing backwards down the face of a mountain. Not really, but kind of. No.

And you’re just like, I hope these brakes work.

A hairpin turn is a turn in a road that is very tight. You might find this going up the face of a mountain like I did.

A hair pin is used to hold long hair in place. Huh.

And a lot of the places where you’re turning, there will be these hair pin turns.

How do they get that experience without going over?

I don’t know. I will say the guy who picked us up in two days to take us home, you could tell he was relieved when we got off that mountain. I don’t think he had a lot of experience.

Oh jeez.

But it was so, so what you get for that is you get you’re so immersed in nature.

Yeah.

Um,

And if you get there, that’s great.  

Yes. Once you get there.

The word immersed has a couple of different meanings. It can mean covered in liquid. Immerse the fabric in dye. It can also mean to be wholly involved in.

I immersed myself in Spanish for 6 weeks living in Mexico and watching no TV in English.

When we say we’re immersed in something, that means totally surrounded by it. Nature was everywhere. There was no feeling of city life and very little feeling of human impact. At the eco hostel, I felt immersed in nature.

And I really loved it because I’ve sort, sort of gotten in this habit, as you know, of going to bed early and waking up early.

Yeah.

And I would wake up at six and the sun the sun would just be rising and the amount of birds and bird song was topnotch. I would just go out and sit on the hammock or up on a stool and I I mean literally just an hour wouldn’t get out my phone. Well, I would, but I’ll tell you why in a second. I would just, just sit there and listen and watch.

Topnotch means the very best.
It was the best place to watch and hear birds that I had ever been.

The birding was topnotch.

You can get a top-notch education at that school.

So, I think I told you you know what I was doing with my phone.

I think I know.

Was it the app I told you?

It was. So, Lisa told me about this map app called Merlin. Yeah. Is you press record and it will listen to the sounds and it will try to identify birds. Um, and I was having a great time. Just the amount of birds that would pop up and then I would try to find them, you know, like, “Oh, this is what it looks like. Let me see.”

Because it does show you what the bird looks like, right?

Yeah. And like one time I heard a sound and it, it popped up and it was like a green, very beautiful green bird. And I looked up and I saw a pack of six of them just flying overhead. It was It was so cool. And I really wanted to see a Toucan and they’re not they, they don’t like they kind of stay away from where people are but so I never saw one but it did pop up on my app like it had heard it. Yes.

And that’s so cool.

Just knowing that I was with an earshot I love that of that bird was sort of fun.

Earshot means within a distance that can be heard. I was close enough to the Toucan to hear it even though I couldn’t see it. I was within hearing distance. I was within earshot.

You can use in or within with earshot.

I can’t talk about what happened right now because my kids are in earshot, but I’ll tell you later.

Just knowing that I was with an earshot. One day I went on this really big hike that I didn’t think was going to be that big. So, Pook doesn’t really want to hike. She’s 71. She likes to bike. Uh, but she also didn’t like the idea of me hiking by myself, which

Yeah, I don’t like that idea either.

She was like, Rachel, they say don’t hike in mountains alone and don’t go swimming in the ocean alone.

You know, she’s a very smart friend.

She’s a smart friend. But I was like, but I’m so independent. I was like, I get it, but if I want to hike, I’m going to go for a hike. So, there was one other person that had been staying in our hostel the night before, and she goes up to him. He was leaving that day. She goes up to him and she goes, “Hey, you should go on this hike with Rachel to Jaguar Falls.” He was not planning on doing this and he was like, “Okay.” So, this guy and I set off on this hike that we think is going to be four to five hours, which is a good long hike. Um, but it ends up being seven and a half.

Set off is a phrasal verb that means to begin a journey. We set off on our hike at sunrise.

And I didn’t I didn’t have the best footwear for it. So I had these little ankle socks and keen hiking water shoes.

Footwear is anything you wear on your feet. Socks, shoes, boots, sandals, pumps, water shoes, and so on. You do not want to go on a long hike without proper footwear.

And the ankle socks kept slipping below and it was rubbing and causing the worst blister. And this guy I was hiking with was so sweet, Fernando. He offered me his socks and I was like, “No, you need to keep your own socks.” But anyway, I got blisters.

A blister is caused by friction, rubbing, or burning. Ouch. It’s a bubble on the skin filled with fluid.

It took so long to get there, we kept really not knowing where we were going. Luckily, I was with a Colombian who spoke obviously perfect Spanish, so he was asking directions along the way. We finally find where we need to go and we get like the we pay a little entrance fee to go to the last part. Um, and we get there and it’s so much bigger than I thought it was going to be. And even though we’re not that close to it, it’s basically like getting sprayed with a hose. It’s just like the mist is just this wall of mist.

Oh.

Mist is a cloud of tiny droplets of water like what was coming off of the falling water at Jaguar Falls. This is the mist that surrounded the hostel the next day.

A wall of mist is a large defined cloud of mist that might move towards you that might obstruct vision. We also use the phrase wall of with smoke. As the house went up in flames, a wall of smoke came towards me.

Like getting sprayed with a hose. It’s just like the mist. It’s just this wall of mist.

Oh.

So then you’re all damp and.

Like soaking wet by the end of the time.

Was it pretty?

It was so pretty. But I don’t really love having wet feet.

I hate having wet feet.

For a second, I was like standing behind a rock so the mist couldn’t hit my feet, but it was hitting the whole rest of my body and just dripping down. And at a certain point, I just had to be like, you know what? We’re going to have soaking wet socks. And that’s okay.

Soaking wet means completely wet. No dry parts left.

I fell into the river. So, I wasn’t just damp. I was soaking wet.

There was also a part where we had to, there was a pretty big river. And she said, “If you start if it starts raining, leave right away because the river gets high fast and you won’t be able to cross it.” But even, even in its little river state, I could barely cross it. I mean, it was very, very strong. Even though it was only maybe knee deep, I had to go down on all fours because it was it was knocking me over.

Oh my gosh.

And I like took off my shoes on the bank and threw them across to the other bank.

I don’t know what to do with her sometimes.

I’m just saying adventure, right? Like a good adventure.

So anyway, seven and a half hours later, I see the hostel. I mean, at this point, our legs are shot.

Yeah.

And our feet.

Yeah.

If something is shot, that means it’s exhausted. It’s used up. It doesn’t work well anymore. For example, when it comes to your car, you don’t want to hear, “Your brakes are shot. You need to replace them.” After the long hike, my legs were shot.

I see the hostel. I mean, at this point, our legs are shot.

Yeah, you’re a walking noodle.

I’m a walking noodle like, we didn’t bring that much food.

What did my sister-in-law mean by walking noodle? Well, think of a cooked noodle. Weak, floppy. I once heard someone who fainted being described as a wet noodle. The body has no strength. This person just sank to the floor. Here, by being a walking noodle. She’s saying my body was so weak and wobbly. I hardly had any strength left.

Because we didn’t think it was going to be anyway. It was so exhausting.

So, you were wet, tired, hungry, a little grouchy.

No, no, it was actually very happy. It was fun because Fernando’s English was about as good as my Spanish. So, we were speaking in both languages the whole time. And I mean, I had a seven and a half hour long conversation with this person.

Yeah.

That’s interesting. You know, that’s,

Right, right.

Life rarely gives you that opportunity, that kind of adventure. Yeah.

So, we had fun together, got home and I he decided he needed to stay again that night because it was so late. He couldn’t get home.

He got him into something. I blame the book.

That’s true. So, we get back and we all stay the night there again. And then the next day he leaves and Pook and I still have the whole next day. And because of having done that hike, I decided to do nothing that day.

I affirm that decision.

It was so good.

If someone says they affirm your decision, that means they agree with you. They think you made the right decision.

That after he left, no one else was there except me and Pook and the staff. There was a massive rainstorm, we had a tin roof. It was just, Wow. I can’t even explain. It was just so, I will, I will remember that day.

And anytime I need to just reset my nervous system, I’m just going to imagine being there. So, it was gorgeous. And after that, we had one, one more night in Colombia, and we were going to spend it in a town called Santa  Marta, which is like 4 hours, maybe 5 hours from the airport, and my flight was in the afternoon. So, we’re just going to go back that last day. But with the day in between leaving the hostel and staying in Santa Marta, we were like, what do we want to do? There’s a national park near Santa Marta called Tayrona. And we decided we were going to go there. So this day that I had nothing to do in the hostel, I was researching what to do in Tayrona and I was using chat GPT which you know, like you were saying your neighbor was having you know writing with chat GPT getting through writer’s block whatever it’s it can be really good for planning a trip because it’s like scouring all the information, right?

It already gathered some of the stuff together for you.

But then, you don’t know,

It’s not like, sure but it’s acting sure. You know what I mean? So it was telling us things that weren’t necessarily true.

Scour has a couple of different definitions here it means to search thoroughly to look everywhere.

We scoured the hotel room for my lost engagement ring but never did find it.

I learned my lesson planning my day in Tayrona National Park with chat GPT and I will share that story in a video soon, but just as a teaser, it does involve a horse.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this video. I absolutely love teaching about the stress and music of spoken American English. Keep your learning going now with this video and don’t forget to subscribe with notifications on. I absolutely love being your English teacher. That’s it. And thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

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